Recently the United States Postal Service (USPS) has recognized the need for techniques to sterilize the mail to prevent the mail from being used to perpetrate acts of bio-terrorism by sending pathogen-containing mail pieces through the mail. In order to counter the threat of exposing postal services employees and mail recipients from the threat of anthrax and/or other pathogens, the USPS has taken steps at great expense to divert mail destined for certain U.S. government agencies for decontamination. However, the processes applied to date have involved mass irradiation of large volumes of mail pieces without consideration of the risk potential associated with different categories of mail. Further, since the sterilization techniques utilized to date were adopted in haste to deal with an emergency situation, the processes and apparatus utilized to sterilize mail have been inefficient and in some cases overdone, resulting in discolored and damaged mail. The present invention addresses systems, methods and apparatus for testing and decontaminating the huge volume of mail handled by the USPS in a more efficient practical manner, taking into account the risk factors associated with different categories of mail.
An electron beam emitter is a device that generates electrons in a vacuum environment, accelerates them to over half the speed of light, and allows the electrons to exit the vacuum chamber through a thin electron-permeable membrane. The use of such devices for sanitization has been suggested; a smaller version of such a device is described in Avnery U.S. Pat. No. 5,962,995, issued Oct. 5, 1999, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein for all purposes.